2nd s. No 72., Mat 16. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



391 



cuius lacteus, the quhilk the marynalis callis Vatlant 

 street" and Gawin Douglas, in his Virgil, speaks of — 



" WatHfif/strete, the Home, and the Charlewane." 



See for much curious dissertation and learning on tlils 

 subject, Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, 1st edit., pp. 242, 

 et seq., 2nd edit. pp. 331, ct seq. In his first edition 

 Grimm suggests that Watling Street may possibly be a 

 corruption of vadhlinga street (via vagantiuni), although he 

 never met with the Anglo-Saxon vadhoUng, and so be 

 connected with eorinen street (via puhlicd).'] 



Banks and his wonderful Horse. — Banks and 

 his horse Marocco, after many adventures, were 

 burnt at Rome as magicians, about the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century. Are there any par- 

 ticulars of the trial and execution preserved ? — I 

 mean, in English or foreign literature, not the 

 archives of the Roman See. 



Shakspeare alludes to this " dancing-horse " in 

 Love's Labours Lost, Act I. Sc. 2. ; and he is also 

 mentioned by Sir W. Raleigh, Ben Jonson, and 

 Sir Kenelm Digby. Henry T. Rilet. 



[The earliest notice of Marocco's popularity — as we 

 learn from Dr. Rimbault's curious Introduction to his 

 reprint for the Percy Society of Marocciis Extatictis, or 

 Bankes^ Bay Horse in a Trance, originally printed in 

 1505, — occurs in a MS. copy of one of Dr. Donne's 

 Satires, dated 1593, preserved in the Harleian MS., 

 No. 5110. Dr. Eimbault there tells us, that after travel- 

 ling through various countries exhibiting his wonderful 

 beast, Bankes was induced to visit Rome; and there, 

 .according to the evidence of the author of JDon Zara del 

 Fogo (p. 114.) both man and horse were burnt, by order 

 of the Pope, for wizards. This work was printed in 1656, 

 but is believed to have been written many j'ears earlier. 

 Dr. Rimbault does not mention the existence of any par- 

 ticulars of the trial.] 



3clcplt€^. 

 THE SIDTLLINE VERSES. 



(2"'i S. iii. 269.) 



A Reader pays me the compliment of quoting 

 my History of Egypt (vol. ii. p. 167., 3rd edit.), 

 about the names given to the Roman Emperors in 

 the " Sibylline Verses," and asks for further in- 

 formation as to the help which they give us in 

 explaining the number of the beast in the Book 

 of Revelation. I am happy to give my opinion in 

 answer. 



It is usual, in the attempts to unravel the mys- 

 terious meaning of the number, to suppose that 

 every letter in the name of the beast was to be 

 taken as a numeral, and that these numerals were 

 to be added together ; and in order to solve the 

 problem, were to amount to C^QQ^ the number 

 required. But this is not the way in which 

 numerals are used in the "Sibylline Verses" to 

 denote the names of the Roman Emperors. The 

 number there means the initial letter of his name ; 

 and this, I argue, is the way in which the number of 

 the beast is to be explained in the Book of Reve- 



lation. The mystical number there is xi^i or 666 ; 

 or in some MSS. x'S", or 616. The former number 

 is supported by the best MSS. ; but, in support 

 of the latter, we may remark that in those MSS, 

 in which the number is written in words at length, 

 and therefore less open to erroi's by the scribe, it 

 is 616. The decypherer must take his choice. 



The Greek alphabet has twenty-four letters ; 

 but when used for numerals, three others are 

 added. These are r,' f, and ?^'. These twenty- 

 seven letters are divided into three classes. The 

 first nine represent the units ; the second nine the 

 tens, and the third nine the hundreds. The beast 

 was, I believe, the reigning emperor Vespatian. 

 His name was Flavius Vespatianus Caesar. Now, 

 to express this name by a number, upon the plan 

 of the " Sibylline Verses," we must find the three 

 initial letters in the three separate classes into 

 which the alphabet is divided : F among the units, 

 V among the tens, and C among the hundreds. 

 This is manifestly impossible. We must, there- 

 fore, take some little liberty with the spelling ; 

 which is further required by remarking, that there 

 were various ways in use for writing the Roman 

 names in Greek letters. Vespatian sometimes 

 began with a B, and sometimes with the diphthong 

 OU. With the first name Flavius, we have no 

 difficulty. F is the digamma, or r, equal to 6. 

 For Caesar we cannot take /c, because that is 

 among the tens for 20 ; and being the third letter, 

 it must be sought among the hundreds. AVe take 

 therefore Xj c^'» equal to 600. For Vespatianus 

 we cannot take B, because that is among the units. 

 We might take O, equal to 70. But the writer 

 has chosen i, equal to 10; and while writing in 

 Greek, was contented to spell this Roman name 

 Flavius Ispatianus Cha3sar. Your readers may 

 perhaps think that the name of Flavius Vespa- 

 tianus Csesar does not very exactly satisfy all the 

 conditions required. Perhaps not. But I argue, 

 on the authority of the method used in the " Si- 

 bylline Verses," that the number which represents 

 the name of the beast represents only the three 

 initial letters of his name, and not, as has been 

 usually supposed, the sura total produced by add- 

 ing up the whole of the numerals in his name. 



Samuel Sharpe. 



Your correspondent, A Reader, who cannot 

 comprehend the allusion made by Mr. S. Sharpe, 

 in his History of Egypt (vol. ii. p. 167.), to "the 

 number of the beast in the Book of Revelation" 

 in connection with the first letters of a Roman 

 emperor's name, will find an explanation in Mr. 

 R. W. Mackay's Rise and Progress of Christianity 

 (pp. 64—65, note 12.). The pseudo-" Sibylline 

 Verses," according to Mr. Sharpe, contain obscure 

 references to the Roman emperors, whose names 

 are rendered by numbers. Mr. Mackay detects a 



